BRASELTON, Ga. — IMSA held their annual State of the Sport presentation Thursday afternoon (Oct. 10) at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. These days, sports car racing is at it’s strongest in many years.
“IMSA’s strong and it’s getting stronger. It’s really a remarkable time for our sport,” IMSA president John Doonan stated during the presentation. “I believe that we are in the greatest moments for sports car racing.”
The accomplishments of 2024 were touted. 10 of the 11 race weekends (including Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta this weekend) have had record attendance this year. The sanctioning body’s social media reach has expanded substantially with over two million followers on social media and 144 million video views via IMSA’s channels including their YouTube channel.
Total streaming of IMSA programming on Peacock grew by 60% year-to-year. Overall viewership for IMSA has grown by 37% since the beginning of the current TV deal in 2019.
As is the norm, a number of announcements were made concerning the 2025 season. The announcements were simply more examples of the good times that IMSA is currently in.
First off, the complete list of accepted entrants into the full 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season was revealed. 55 teams have confirmed entries.
There are 13 confirmed entries for the GTP class in 2025, up from 11 in 2024. The new squads include The Heart of Racing, which is moving up from the GTD Pro class with their new Aston Martin Valkyrie, the first Hypercar that will race in GTP. Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian will also be back with two Acura ARX-06s after a year away.
Chip Ganassi Racing will not be back in 2025 with their Cadillacs. They will be replaced in the GM fold with Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Global, who previously announced their change back to Cadillac with their two cars for 2025.
There will be 12 teams in LMP2, up from 10 in 2024. The biggest addition is Pratt Miller Motorsports.
This team is best remembered for running the longtime factory Corvettes as Corvette Racing from 1999-2023. Today, under the banner of Corvette Racing with Pratt Miller Motorsports, they continue to field two Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs in the GTD Pro class. In addition to those cars, the team will field a full-time ORECA 07-Gibson running the No. 73.
Inter Europol Competition and PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports will no longer collaborate on one entry. Instead, each team will run their own car full-time. PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports will retain the No. 52, while Inter Europol Competition will run the No. 43.
There is also an entry for Algarve Pro Racing, the No. 04. As you may remember, this is the CrowdStrike Racing entry. The team was running full-time this season until a CrowdStrike security update triggered a massive Windows outage earlier this year that forced CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to step away from racing.
Sean Creech Motorsports, which ran a Ligier JS P217-Gibson this season, is not on the list. For now, that will mean that LMP2 will be an ORECA-only class in 2025.
There are nine entries in GTD Pro for 2025. As previously announced, Paul Miller Racing is expanding to two BMW M4 GT3s next season. There is also a full-time Lamborghini team under the title of Automobili Lamborghini that will run the No. 163 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2.
There were 21 GTD cars listed with confirmed. These teams include DXDT Racing, which announced their move to IMSA earlier this week.
Another new team on the grid will be van der Steur Racing with the No. 19. This team will be moving up from IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge, where they currently compete in the Grand Sport class. It is really a return of sorts as the team raced in the LMP2 class in the American Le Mans Series in the 2000s.
The Heart of Racing’s No. 27 will move back to the GTD class for 2025. For the past couple of races, the team has competed in GTD Pro using No. 027.
Lone Star Racing will be returning with their No. 80 Mercedes, while DragonSpeed is on the list with their Ferrari 296 GT3, this time using the No. 81.
Triarsi Competizione will up their entry to two cars for 2025. The new No. 021 Ferrari will race full-time, while the No. 023 will continue to run the Endurance races only. Doonan indicated during the presentation that there is room for one more full-time entry on the grid.
There will be additional entries at the Rolex 24 at Daytona and potentially other races. One of those teams at Daytona will be Magnus Racing, which previously announced that their entry for just Daytona was accepted. Team owner/driver John Potter is stepping away from regular racing after Daytona to focus on a new opportunity in the hospitality industry.
How many one-off entries for Daytona remain to be seen. However, the interest is very high.
SportsCar365.com’s John Dagys is reporting that “87 or 88 teams” have requested entries for January’s 24-hour classic. That is a significant increase over this year, which was in the low 70s and required the use of a reserve list. It is unclear how many entries that IMSA may allow for the Rolex 24 at Daytona, although the entry list hasn’t been above 61 since 2014.
In addition to the one remaining possible full-time car, there could be part-time teams that show up at sprint races.
Doonan also teased of additional content coming out of NASCAR’s new NASCAR Productions building in North Carolina starting in 2025. There could be some new podcasts and web series for IMSA produced out of there. NASCAR has produced some new shows out of there recently such as NASCAR Daily with Shannon Spake and NASCAR Inside the Playoffs show that currently airs Thursday nights on TruTV.
The 2025-26 IMSA Diverse Driver Development Scholarship has been awarded to Celso Neto, who raced this season in SRO America’s TC America powered by Skip Barber Racing School. He will use the scholarship to race in IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge’s TCR class for Precision Racing LA (formerly LA Honda World Racing).
“Racing in IMSA was a dream since I was a kid,” Neto said in a press release. “Living in Orlando for a lot of my life and going to the 24 Hours of Daytona or something every year with my karting team and all my friends, just seeing those cars there. I have pictures of Pilot Challenge cars when I was 13 or 14. Being able to have the opportunity to race in this series that you’ve always looked up to is really special. It brought back a lot of emotions of all the steps that it takes to get to this point, all the hard work that sometimes isn’t seen.”
Neto made his Pilot Challenge debut in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 4 Hours of Mid-Ohio back in June for Skip Barber Racing in an Aston Martin. Sharing with 2024-25 MSA Diverse Driver Development Scholarship recipient Ken Fukuda and Will Lambros, Neto finished 19th in class.
Neto finished second in TCX points this season with six victories in an Acura Integra Type S TCX for Skip Barber Racing, including the final three races of the year. Neto first came to the United States from Brazil to race with the help of Victor Gonzalez Jr. Gonzalez fielded a Honda for Neto in TC America late in 2022.
Gonzalez told Frontstretch in 2022 at Watkins Glen that he was proud to bring Neto to the United States. At the time. Neto was insistent about making a racing career work in the United States after having competed in the Stock Car Pro Series in Brazil.
IMSA also announced that Rolex will serve as the official timepiece of IMSA in a multi-year deal. They have also teamed up with Gainbridge to form IMSA STEM, a new way to introduce students to hands-on motorsports demonstrations in IMSA markets.
Prior to the presentation, IMSA announced that the CUPRA Leon TZ TCR will join Michelin Pilot Challenge’s TCR class in 2025. CUPRA is the performance division of Seat, the Volkswagen Audi Group’s Spanish division. While CUPRA does not currently sell cars in the United States, they plan to in the next few years. Since CUPRA is technically a sister brand to Audi and Lamborghini, they are good to go in regards to manufacture eligibility.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.